Chapter 5 #3
“We agreed to stay away from each other.” His teeth graze my pulse point, and I have to bite back a moan.
“We did.”
“This is the opposite of staying away.” His hand slides higher under my shirt, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast.
“I noticed.”
“We should stop.” But he’s pressing harder against me, and I can feel how much he doesn’t want to stop.
“We should.” I rock back against him deliberately this time, and his groan vibrates through my entire body.
“Callie—” My name comes out as almost a growl.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” I challenge, grinding against him again.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do want it. Want you. Have wanted you since that first day with the damn goat.” His hand cups my breast through my bra. “Do you know what you’ve been doing to me? Walking around in those tight jeans, arguing with me, looking at me with those eyes?”
“What about what you’ve been doing to me?” I reach back, threading my fingers through his hair, pulling his mouth to my neck. “Acting all superior and competent, fixing things with those hands, looking at me like you want to devour me?”
“I do want to devour you.” He proves it by sucking on my pulse point, definitely leaving a mark. “Want to taste every inch of you.”
“Wyatt—”
“Want to find out what sounds you make when you come apart.” His hand slides down my stomach, fingers playing with the waistband of my shorts. “Want to be the one who makes you make those sounds.”
I’m trembling now, caught between his body and his words, drowning in sensation and want.
“This is crazy,” I breathe.
“Completely insane,” he agrees, his fingers dipping just below my waistband.
“If anyone finds out—”
“I know.”
“Your dad will disown you.”
“Probably,” he agrees, his teeth grazing my shoulder where my tank top has slipped.
“My dad would literally kill you.”
“Worth it.” His hand slides lower, and I have to bite my hand to keep from crying out.
“So what are we doing?”
“I have no idea.” His fingers find the edge of my underwear. “But I know I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop wanting you.”
“Wyatt, we can’t—not here—”
“I know.” But his fingers are still teasing, still driving me crazy. “But tell me you feel it too. Tell me I’m not alone in this.”
“You’re not alone.” I turn in his arms, needing to see his face, even in the darkness. “You’re definitely not alone.”
His hands frame my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones. “This is such a bad idea.”
“The worst.”
“We should stop.”
“We should.”
But neither of us moves to break the spell. We stay frozen in that moment, teetering on the edge of something that could change everything. His thumb traces my bottom lip, and I part them instinctively.
“I want to kiss you again,” he says roughly.
“So kiss me.”
He does, and this time there’s nothing gentle about it. It’s hot and demanding, like he’s trying to memorize the taste of me. I kiss him back just as desperately.
When we break apart, we’re both panting.
“We’re playing with fire,” he says against my mouth.
“I know.”
“Someone’s going to get burned.”
“Probably.”
“Probably definitely.”
But he kisses me again anyway, and I let him, because right now, in this dark barn with hay dust in the air and danger all around us, I don’t care about getting burned.
I care about the way his hands feel on my skin. The way his mouth moves against mine. The way my entire body lights up when he touches me.
That’s when the barn door flies open.
“Wyatt?” Jesse’s voice cuts through the darkness in a loud whisper. “What the hell are you doing in the McCoy’s barn—oh. Well.”
Light from a phone flashlight illuminates us with me pressed against Wyatt, my lips puffy from kissing, my tank top askew, his hand still under the hem. Jesse stops dead in the doorway, and I hear Boone bump into him from behind.
“What’s the holdup?” Boone asks, then spots us. “Oh. Hey, Callie.”
“Hey,” I manage, my voice coming out strangled. I’m acutely aware of how this looks—how debauched I must appear with my hair messed up, my clothes disheveled, Wyatt’s body still pressed against mine.
Wyatt steps back from me, putting space between us that feels like a canyon. “What are you two doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Jesse says, still holding the light on us, and I can see his eyes taking in every detail like my flushed face, Wyatt’s defensive stance, and the way we’re both breathing hard. “You disappeared with your toolbox. Figured you were up to something.”
“Turns out we were right,” Boone adds cheerfully, but his eyes are dark as they travel over me, lingering on the mess that I am.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say, trying to straighten my clothes without being obvious about it.
“Really?” Jesse’s grin is visible even in the dim light, but there’s heat in his gaze too. “Because it looks like you and my brother were about to—”
“Shut up,” Wyatt growls, moving slightly in front of me, protective.
“I was just going to say ‘have a conversation,’” Jesse says innocently, but his eyes drop to my mouth. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“Nothing. We weren’t doing anything.”
“Uh-huh.” Jesse steps into the barn, and Boone follows, closing the door behind them. The space suddenly feels much smaller, more intimate. “So why are you hiding in here?”
“Her dad came home early,” Wyatt explains, his voice tight. “We didn’t want him to see us.”
“Smart,” Boone says, moving closer. “Hank Thompson finding a McCoy on his property would not end well.”
“Hence the hiding,” I add, very aware that I’m now trapped between three McCoy brothers in a dark barn while wearing very little.
“Hence the close hiding,” Jesse says, moving closer still.
“So,” he says quietly, his voice dropping to that tone that made me weak during the chili cook-off practice, “were we interrupting something important?”
“No,” Wyatt and I say simultaneously, but the denial sounds weak even to me.
“Because it really looks like we’re interrupting something.” Jesse steps closer, and now he’s in my space, close enough that I can see the way his pupils are dilated in the low light. “Something that involves my brother’s hands under your shirt.”
My face flames, but there’s something else too. A heat that has nothing to do with embarrassment.
“Jesse,” Wyatt warns, more resigned than angry.
“What? I’m making conversation.” Jesse reaches out and touches my wrist, his thumb finding my pulse point exactly the way Wyatt’s did earlier. “Your heart’s racing, pretty girl.”
“It’s been a stressful night.” My voice comes out breathy.
“Has it?” He steps even closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Or is it something else?”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but stand there, caught between Jesse in front of me and the memory of Wyatt’s hands on my body, while Boone watches from the side with an intensity I’ve never seen from him before.
“Jesse,” Wyatt says again, but there’s something different in his voice now. Less warning, more... acceptance?
“What?” Jesse doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I’m just asking questions.”
“You’re pushing.”
“Maybe she likes being pushed.” His thumb strokes along my wrist, and I shiver. “Do you like being pushed, Callie?”
I open my mouth to answer, but no words come out because the truth is, God help me, I do. I like the way Jesse crowds into my space, the way Wyatt’s hands feel possessive on my skin, the way Boone looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“Because the way I see it,” Jesse continues, “you’ve been pushing back pretty hard. Fighting us every step of the way.”
“I’m not fighting anything.” The lie is so obvious, it’s laughable.
“Jesse,” Boone says quietly, and there’s something different in his voice. Something serious and heated that makes me look at him. He’s moved closer too, and in the dim light, I see how his jaw is clenched, and the way his hands are fisted at his sides like he’s fighting for control.
“What, Boone?”
“She’s scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I protest, but my voice shakes as I say it.
“You are,” Boone says, moving closer still. Now I’m basically surrounded with Jesse in front, Boone to my right, and Wyatt behind me to the left. “This is hot.”
“This is stupid,” I say, but the word comes out weak.
“Same thing, sometimes.” Boone’s hand comes to rest on my lower back, and the touch is gentle but it still burns.
Now all three of them are close enough to touch, and I feel like I’m drowning in cowboy testosterone.
“We should go,” I say weakly.
“Should we?” Jesse asks, and his thumb brushes over my pulse point again. “Or should we stop pretending we don’t all want the same thing?”
“What do we all want?” My voice is barely a whisper.
“You.” The words are simple, but they hit like a lightning bolt.
My pulse is hammering so hard, I’m sure they can all hear it. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because... because we’re supposed to be enemies. Because you can’t all want—”
“We can,” Wyatt says roughly from behind me. “And we do.”
I turn to look at him, and the hunger in his eyes takes my breath away. “Since when?”
“Since you stood up to me about that goat. Since you threw chili at Jesse. Since you made Boone laugh during the three-legged-race practice.” His voice is rough, honest. “Since you became impossible to ignore.”
“What?” I breathe. “I grew up next door to you. You didn’t just discover me.”
“Let’s just say,” Jesse agrees, leaning closer, “little Callie Thompson is finally all grown up.”
God help me. My body is responding without my permission, arching into their touches, seeking more contact.
“Callie,” Jesse says, his voice rough with want.
“Yeah?”
“Tell us to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“This. Before it goes too far.”
I look up at him, then at Wyatt, then at Boone. Three faces, three different expressions of desire and restraint and hope. Three brothers who represent everything I’m not supposed to want.